Of the 14 men in contention for the Republican nomination, the three strongest leading up to the convention were Ulysses S. Grant, James G. Blaine, and John Sherman.

The Garfield–Arthur Republican ticket narrowly defeated Democrats Winfield Scott Hancock and William Hayden English in the 1880 presidential election.

[1] His actions were contrary to the then-prevailing spoils system of patronage appointments and the campaign strategy of "waving the bloody shirt" employed by Republicans in the years after the war.

Roscoe Conkling, leader of the Stalwart faction, formed a "triumvirate" with J. Donald Cameron of Pennsylvania and John A. Logan of Illinois to lead Grant's campaign.

Nonetheless, he listened to Young, and wrote a letter to J. Donald Cameron that authorized his name to be withdrawn from the nomination contest if his other Stalwart backers concurred.

[19] Four years earlier Blaine had campaigned for the nomination; in the weeks prior to the 1876 convention, he was accused of committing fraudulent activities involving railroad stocks.

[20] Blaine pleaded his own defense on the floor of the House of Representatives, and read aloud selected, edited portions of the letters that were not incriminating.

As his campaign manager, William E. Chandler, put it: He must be nominated at Chicago in June, or else forever give up any idea of gaining the Chief Magistry of the nation...

He argued for the gold standard, support for big business, a tariff to protect American jobholders, civil rights for freed Blacks and Irish independence.

Garfield's health deteriorated and he was assigned to serve on a commission that investigated the conduct of Union general Fitz John Porter.

In the New York state convention, which took place in Conkling's hometown of Utica, Grant's supporters won a 217–180 majority over Blaine's, but Conkling oversaw passage of a resolution declaring that, "the Republicans of New York believe the re-election of Ulysses S. Grant as presidential candidate of urgent importance, and the delegates this day assembled are called upon and instructed to use their earnest and united efforts to secure his nomination.

[35] By May 29, four days before the opening of the convention, trainloads of delegates, lobbyists, reporters, and campaign followers had arrived at Chicago's Union and Dearborn railway stations.

Blaine's forces agreed that they could only prevent Cameron from imposing the unit rule by removing him as the chair of the Republican National Committee.

[42] Colorado senator Jerome B. Chaffee handed Cameron a handwritten anti-unit rule motion that was orchestrated by William E. Chandler.

Cameron then used a ruling from George Congdon Gorham, a California Stalwart delegate who as secretary of the United States Senate was an expert on parliamentary procedure, to sustain his action.

"[44] Marshall Jewell, a Connecticut delegate and national committee member who had served as Grant's Postmaster General, spoke against Cameron's rulings.

After the recess, he acknowledged a motion from William E. Chandler to elect George Frisbie Hoar, a neutral senator and delegate from Massachusetts, as the convention's temporary chairman.

"[48] Chandler then discussed the compromise with the thirty anti-Grant committee members, and also with Garfield, who had previously expressed opposition to the unit rule.

A reporter from the New York Tribune later remarked that Grant's supporters had been "saved from utter ruin by the excellent management of General Arthur...."[48] At noon on Wednesday, June 2, Cameron gaveled in the seventh Republican National Convention and placed the nomination of Hoar as temporary chairman before the delegates, who approved unanimously.

Senator Eugene Hale of Maine submitted a resolution for a roll call, in which the chairman of each state delegation would announce his appointees to the convention's three committees.

Conkling did not take the defeat well and recognized Garfield's growing popularity by sending him a note which read, "New York requests that Ohio's real candidate and dark horse come forward.

After John A. Logan had barred anti-Grant delegates from the state convention earlier in the year, they had decided to file credential reports.

A Chicago lawyer who supported Grant, Emery Storrs interrupted the legal argument over credentials by mocking the Blaine campaigners.

"[55] The fracas continued until 2:00 A.M. when acting chairman Green B. Raum, the United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue, banged the gavel to end the demonstration.

After North Carolina's roll call, the Ohio delegation brought out James Garfield to give the nomination speech for John Sherman.

Late on Sunday June 6, Benjamin Harrison, the leader of Indiana's delegation, visited Garfield at his hotel to inquire about his conditions for accepting the nomination.

The first surprise during the balloting roll call came when John A. Logan of Illinois announced that of his state's forty-two delegates, only twenty-four were in support of Grant.

[81] Garfield was so overwhelmed with emotion after winning the nomination that an Inter Ocean reporter noted that he looked "pale as death, and seemed to be half-unconsciously to receive the congratulations of his friends," and various sources also claim that he went back to his hotel room post-convention and cried.

[87] The nomination was then offered (surreptitiously, and without consulting Garfield)[79] to Chester A. Arthur, who had close Stalwart ties to Conkling, but who had impressed delegates with his work to broker the compromise on the selection of a convention chairman.

The 1880 Democratic National Convention chose Winfield Scott Hancock as the presidential candidate and William Hayden English as his vice-presidential running mate.